Patrick Turner

Previously, Mr Turner was an Assistant Secretary General at NATO, first for Operations from 2015 to 2018, and then for Defence Policy and Planning from 2018 to 2022. From 2011 to 2015, he was the United Kingdom’s Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO. He also served at NATO in the 1990s, working in the Private Office of three Secretaries General (Manfred Wörner, Willy Claes and Javier Solana).

Mr Turner has had a long career in security and defence. He joined the UK Ministry of Defence in 1984, and has held a broad range of positions in the UK government (Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office, Foreign Office and Home Office) as well as at NATO. Amongst other things, he helped to lead the implementation of the UK’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review; led efforts to review the UK’s defence posture post-9/11; led work on the renewal of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent in 2005-2007; and led contributions to the UK’s first national security strategy, published in 2008. He was the Minister (Defence) at the British Embassy in Washington in 2008-2010, and was a senior civilian adviser to the British Army in 2010-2011.

Mr Turner was born in the UK in 1963. He was educated at the Dragon School Oxford, Radley College and then Merton College, Oxford. He has an MA in Modern History from Merton College. He also attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in 2003 and was a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London in 2004.

Mr Turner is married to Therese Dymond, an American, and has four children.